Bobby Sands's election is a tremendous victory for the anti-imperialist movement in Ireland. Despite efforts by the capitalist press to brand Sands and the other republican prisoners as "criminals and terrorists" the vast majority of the oppressed nationalist population has shown that they recognized the prisoners as fighters against British occupation of the Six Counties of the North of Ireland.
The victory has thrown the British government into confusion. For the last twelve years Britain failed to impose its solutions in the Six Counties. Now they are faced with a republican prisoner on a hunger strike elected to the British Parliament in an unprecedented show of mass opposition to their rule. Continual rioting in the streets of Derry and Belfast shows how explosive the situation has become.
The campaign in support of the prisoners has won important backing. The day of action in December called by the National H-Block/Armagh Committee resulted in virtual shutdowns in many areas in the North and important solidarity actions in the South led by rank-and-file workers. For the first time since 1968 young people have organized themselves in the campaign as "Youth Against H-Block Committees." The women's movement has been drawn into the campaign through highlighting the case of the women prisoners in Armagh. The anti-imperialist movement has remobilized and regained its confidence. The task of creating a new leadership for the Irish working-class movement has become more and more urgent in this context.
The Tory government in Britain continues with its callous and intransigent stance. Yet they are forced to look for new allies for imperialism in Ireland. The Unionists in the North have shown that they are not prepared to go along with Britain in achieving stability in the Six Counties unless their privileged position is retained intact. The Tory government has been forced to look to the Dublin government for their allies.
Charles Haughey, prime minister in Dublin and leader of the ruling Fianna Fáil party in Ireland, supposedly the pronationalist of the two main parties, has stepped up cooperation on the "security" of the border. Despite the outspoken statements of some of the members of his party, most notably Sile De Valera, in support of the prisoners, Haughey has refused to openly call on the British government to grant their demands.
The imminence of an election in the South creates difficulties for Haughey. He cannot go to the country on the back of dead prisoners. His apparent success in forcing Britain into talks on the possibility of a new all-Ireland solution for the situation in the North, would be lost.
The task of the solidarity movement internationally must be to create mass pressure on Britain to meet the prisoners' demands and to force British imperialism and its military occupation out of Ireland and allow the Irish people to take control of their own affairs.
British troops out now!